“Well, it was this way,” she began.  “It was when I was little.  My folks must have been rich, oh, rich into the millions—­coffee, I guess—­and there was a large house, but I can only remember the plate.  Oh, that service of plate!  It was wonderful.  There were more than a hundred pieces, and every one of them gold.  You should have seen the sight when the leather trunk was opened.  It fair dazzled your eyes.  It was a yellow blaze like a fire, like a sunset; such a glory, all piled up together, one piece over the other.  Why, if the room was dark you’d think you could see just the same with all that glitter there.  There wa’n’t a piece that was so much as scratched; every one was like a mirror, smooth and bright, just like a little pool when the sun shines into it.  There was dinner dishes and soup tureens and pitchers; and great, big platters as long as that and wide too; and cream-jugs and bowls with carved handles, all vines and things; and drinking mugs, every one a different shape; and dishes for gravy and sauces; and then a great, big punch-bowl with a ladle, and the bowl was all carved out with figures and bunches of grapes.  Why, just only that punch-bowl was worth a fortune, I guess.  When all that plate was set out on a table, it was a sight for a king to look at.  Such a service as that was!  Each piece was heavy, oh, so heavy! and thick, you know; thick, fat gold, nothing but gold—­red, shining, pure gold, orange red—­and when you struck it with your knuckle, ah, you should have heard!  No church bell ever rang sweeter or clearer.  It was soft gold, too; you could bite into it, and leave the dent of your teeth.  Oh, that gold plate!  I can see it just as plain—­solid, solid, heavy, rich, pure gold; nothing but gold, gold, heaps and heaps of it.  What a service that was!”

Maria paused, shaking her head, thinking over the vanished splendor.  Illiterate enough, unimaginative enough on all other subjects, her distorted wits called up this picture with marvellous distinctness.  It was plain she saw the plate clearly.  Her description was accurate, was almost eloquent.

Did that wonderful service of gold plate ever exist outside of her diseased imagination?  Was Maria actually remembering some reality of a childhood of barbaric luxury?  Were her parents at one time possessed of an incalculable fortune derived from some Central American coffee plantation, a fortune long since confiscated by armies of insurrectionists, or squandered in the support of revolutionary governments?

It was not impossible.  Of Maria Macapa’s past prior to the time of her appearance at the “flat” absolutely nothing could be learned.  She suddenly appeared from the unknown, a strange woman of a mixed race, sane on all subjects but that of the famous service of gold plate; but unusual, complex, mysterious, even at her best.